​Nutrition for Health Promotion

• The most important factor is one’s outlook on life. Be optimistic. Do what you want to do. For example, people might worry if they did not get a good night’s sleep or a proper meal, but generally, not being able to sleep or get a proper meal is not a major problem in itself—the problem is worrying about it. There are all kinds of theories, like “Early to bed, early to rise,”or “Eat three good meals a day.” But people with a zest for life remain healthy even if the natural rhythm of their day is a little upset sometimes. 

• Hunger and energy use are controlled by the brain, mostly without your awareness. Our brain does a lot of its work behind the scenes, and that is a good thing, because our conscious mind it’s easily distracted. It’s good that we don’t have to remember we need to eat but let the hunger be the guidance for it. 

• Mindful eating is about learning to understand your body’s signals so that you eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full, because a lot of weight gain boils down to eating when you’re not hungry. How do you do it? Give yourself permission to eat as much as you want, and then work on figuring out what makes your body feel good. Sit down to regular meals without distractions. Think about how your body feels when you start to eat and when you stop, and let your hunger decide when you should be done.

• Willpower is limited. Don’t abuse it on refraining yourself constantly from specific foods. You’d better use it for more important things (finishing a project, helping out a friend, saving money for something important).

• Food combining. Protein and carbohydrate are digested differently. If a protein is eaten with a carbohydrate, the different digestive juices in contact with each other may dilute each other’s effectiveness. Impaired digestion may slow transition time allowing the protein to putrefy and the carbohydrate to ferment. The result is gas and flatulence in the system! Since fruit takes around 30 minutes to pass through the stomach, and concentrated protein takes 2 to 3 hours, this means that the best time to eat fruit is as a snack, more than 30 minutes before a meal, or not less than I to 2 hours after a meal, and possibly more if you eat a lot of concentrated protein. 

• Eat meat occasionally. The general consensus is that we, the human race, have been eating a predominantly vegetarian diet for millions of years, with the occasional meat or fish.

• Your gut health affects your mood and mental health. The brain receives chemical messages from the gut, which can affect your mood and emotions. In fact, the vast majority of serotonin (a neurotransmitter that regulates mood, sleep, anxiety, depression and more) is actually made in your gut, not your brain! It’s all connected and sadly, few doctors ask you about your digestive health when you tell them you’re feeling too blue to cope.

• Your gut is a major component of your immune system. About 60-70 percent of your immune system lives in your gut. The gut contains specialized immune structures that are filled with immune cells which are responsible for recognizing and neutralizing harmful bacteria. Another way your gut protects you from infection and disease is through an abundance of healthy bacteria.

• Avoid too much refined, processed or cooked food. Not only is refining food a modern invention, so too is cooking it. The more refined, processed or cooked a food is the less nutrition it will provide. Just keep it simple. The more ingredients in a label the higher chances to get a wrong mix of ingredients, high-processed ingredients and preservatives. Try to stick to products with just a few ingredients.

• Minimize the consumption of liquids with a meal or immediately following. Fluids consumed along with or after a meal may dilute enzymes needed for digestion.

• Chewing your food properly increases bioavailability as it breaks open the cell structure. Smaller fiber particles sweep through the digestive tract with ease.

• Fermented or “cultured” foods provide beneficial bacteria (friendly flora, probiotics).  This is crucial to maintaining a harmonious balance in our internal ecosystem.  They adapt to the environment’s needs, increasing or decreasing secretions in the stomach based on what it needs.

Photo credit: http://www.alderbrooke.com/chart.php